Bad karma? $100K hybrid encounters hiccups

Neil Vigdor

Published
1:00 am EDT, Tuesday, May 22, 2012

A brand-new Fisker Karma (foreground), purchased from Miller Motorcars in Greenwich, was the source of a fire that destroyed a Houston-area home's garage where it was parked, according to a fire official. Various investigations into what sparked the blaze are ongoing. less

A brand-new Fisker Karma (foreground), purchased from Miller Motorcars in Greenwich, was the source of a fire that destroyed a Houston-area home's garage where it was parked, according to a fire official. ... more

Photo: Contributed Photo

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A brand-new Fisker Karma (foreground), purchased from Miller Motorcars in Greenwich, was the source of a fire that destroyed a Houston-area home's garage where it was parked, according to a fire official. Various investigations into what sparked the blaze are ongoing. less

A brand-new Fisker Karma (foreground), purchased from Miller Motorcars in Greenwich, was the source of a fire that destroyed a Houston-area home's garage where it was parked, according to a fire official. ... more

Photo: Contributed Photo

Bad karma? $100K hybrid encounters hiccups

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It's aptly named the Karma.

Whether it's good or bad is in the eye of the beholder for the maiden vehicle of the Fisker brand, a plug-in hybrid sedan that looks more like a Maserati than a Prius and commands a six-figure price tag.

The good: Justin Bieber drives one. Top Gear named the Fisker Karma the luxury car of the year in 2011, burnishing its street cred with the eco-chic demographic in wealthy enclaves like Greenwich and Hollywood. Not only does the luxury hybrid come with a one-time $7,500 tax credit, but it can be driven for months at a time without a single visit to the gas station.

The bad: Consumer Reports couldn't get the car to start at its Connecticut test center in March, not the kind of YouTube video a budding automaker wants going viral. To add insult to injury, it wasn't a press car either, but one that the product-testing mainstay bought for $108,000 from Miller Motorcars in Greenwich.

The ugly: A May 2 inferno at the home of an electricity broker executive near Houston is being blamed on a Karma that was leased from the very same dealership, which is one of the top Fisker franchises nationwide.

"If they prove that this car is extremely reliable in the future and does not have any further issues, Fisker is going to be OK," said David Champion, director of automobile testing for Consumer Reports. "But if they continue to have issues, it's going to be difficult for them to keep going."

Co-founded by the Danish auto designer Henrik Fisker, the hybrid manufacturer arrived on the scene in 2007 and went to market with its first car in December of last year, having sold or leased what the company estimates to be 900 vehicles. The Karma is designed in the U.S. and built in Finland, according to the company, which says that 50 percent of the materials used in its introductory model are domestic.

"I think, at the end of the day, we have complete and absolute confidence in the integrity of our vehicles," Ormisher said.

The Fisker Karma runs both on a rechargeable lithium ion battery and a 2-liter, turbo-charged General Motors engine, the latter of which runs on gasoline. It can go about 50 miles on a full charge, which takes about six hours to complete. The vehicle can be plugged into a 110-volt outlet or 220-volt charging station. Once the charge runs out, it can go another 250 miles on regular gas.

Fisker has endured its share of growing pains that Ormisher characterized as "small hurdles," from recalls of its battery packs to public criticism of the company reaping the benefits of $193 million in green industry loans from the U.S. Department of Energy despite building its cars overseas.

"I think this sort of demonstrates just how difficult it is to launch a new vehicle," said Alex Nunez, senior editor, automotive, for ConsumerSearch.com and a Trumbull resident.

Then there is the damage-control campaign resulting from a garage fire in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land, Texas.

The May 2 blaze virtually destroyed the home of Jeremy Gutierrez, who declined to be interviewed.

His lawyer told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers that Gutierrez, a husband and father, leased a 2012 Fisker Karma from Miller Motorcars on April 12. The total cost to Gutierrez, including interest payments on the four-year lease, was $125,000.

But Gutierrez's new toy became his family's worst nightmare, according to Hood, who said that the car had been in his possession for less than two weeks when it burst into flames in the attached garage of his $1.2 million home.

Gutierrez had just returned from work, a 10-minute drive, and heard an explosion when he entered his home, Hood said. When he went to check on the commotion, Hood said Gutierrez found his new car engulfed in flames.

In addition to major structural damage to the home, Hood said the family lost furniture and two other vehicles, an Acura NSX and Mercedes SUV, worth a total of $300,000. Gutierrez was said by his lawyer to still be weighing his legal options, including whether to file a lawsuit.

"It does look like they're going to take it back down to the studs," Hood said of the home.

Robert Baker, chief investigator for the fire marshal's office of Fort Bend County (Texas), determined that the origin of the fire was the Fisker Karma.

"It came from the car, but the exact cause of it is being torn apart," Baker said.

The hybrid was not plugged in at the time of the blaze, according to Baker, who said that a host of investigators from the family's insurance company, the federal government and the automaker itself are currently sifting through the clues.

"Normally when it's something like this, being an electric vehicle and new, I'm sure they want to find out if there's a problem what it is," Baker said. "Just to tell you, I didn't even know what a Fisker was until this happened."

Bailey Vanneck, the general manager of Miller Motorcars, lamented the situation.

"We're obviously sorry that it happened," Vanneck said.

Fisker Automotive is urging consumers not to jump to conclusions about the source of the inferno, however.

"The cause is yet to be determined. In our view, it's premature to say that the car is the cause of the fire," Ormisher said. "A car doesn't generally combust. There has to be a cause. There has to be a flame or ignite point."

"NHTSA is aware of the incident and is working with local authorities to evaluate whether there are any potential safety implications," the agency said in a statement. "The agency will continue to monitor the situation and will take appropriate action as warranted."

Nunez gave Fisker high marks for how it responded to another hiccup in its short but eventful history -- the fabled Consumer Reports video, which has gotten 606,261 hits on YouTube.

In it, Tom Mutchler, a test engineer for the nonprofit organization, is shown behind the wheel of a Fisker Karma that Consumer Reports bought under a different name from Miller Motorcars in March and paid for by check in the amount of $108,000.

"It is low. It is sleek. It is sensuous. It's also broken right here in the middle of our driveway," Mutchler said.

Consumer Reports purchases about 80 automobiles annually to put through the paces at its East Haddam testing facility.

Fisker Automotive attributed the problem to a faulty battery pack, which it said triggered an automatic shutdown mechanism in the vehicle that is designed to prevent damage.

"It's a killer if they don't act to resolve the issue," Nunez said. "Fisker, instead of stonewalling, they went out and dealt with the heat and addressed the problem. The net result, I think, is positive for everybody."

Despite the setbacks, which include the car returning to the shop just this past week because of a "check engine" light, Champion characterized Miller Motorcars as being extremely responsive to maintenance issues with the Fisker.

"They're breaking new ground," Champion said of the automaker. "Any new technology has issues."

The jury is still out as far as the Fisker Karma is concerned, however.

"It's a very large car without much room inside," Champion said. "It's stunning looking, but we are still in the process of doing fuel economy and other work on it."

Fisker is the new kid on the block at Miller Motorcars, which also sells Ferraris, Bentleys and McLarens, among other high-end brands. The West Putnam Avenue dealership is one of about 45 in the U.S. that carry the Karma, which ranges in cost from $102,000 to $116,000. Some paint options cost more.

"The sales have been progressing as well as we've anticipated," said Vanneck, who estimated the dealership has sold or leased 20 Fiskers.

Fisker is expected to expand its lineup to include a hybrid model called the Atlantic, which will cost about half the price of the Karma and be manufactured at a former GM plant in Wilmington, Del., bought by the automaker. The project has been put on hold, however.

While the company qualified for $528.7 million in Department of Energy loans in 2009, Ormisher said the company is reassessing whether it will use taxpayer dollars for its expansion or tap into the $1 billion in private equity funds Fisker has raised.

"We see that there's a great deal of interest in Fisker Automotive as an investment," Ormisher said.

Greenwich native Scott "Scooter" Braun, who discovered "Bieber Fever" and manages the pop sensation, presented the crooner with a chrome-colored Fisker for a birthday present in March. It didn't come from Greenwich, though.

"The fact that he was given the car by his manager as a birthday gift, we've gotten a lot of good publicity from that," Ormisher said.

Nunez can see celebrities ditching the Prius for the Fisker, whose interior is made from reclaimed lumber, soy-based bio fiber and other recycled post-consumer materials. Even the leather comes from a closed-loop leather manufacturing plant, which uses hides sourced from farms that abide by the five freedoms of humane animal treatment.

"Sure there's inherent celebrity appeal in that you can have your cake and eat it too in that you can have this exotic car and it's also a plug-in electric, too," Nunez said.